When it comes to being single these days, the dating scene can often feel like a series of endless swipes — left for no, right for yes — that never results in an actual relationship. Dating company Hinge says it’s ditching “swipe culture” with its new app aimed at folks who want an actual relationship — but it’ll cost you. [More]

Have you gone on a bad date recently? Maybe he had food in his teeth the whole time, or perhaps she wouldn’t stop talking about her Precious Moments collections. It could’ve been worse, though. Your date could’ve ordered a bunch of food and drinks at a pricey steakhouse and then fled, leaving you with the bill. [More]

Usually when you think of “privacy,” that comprises ideas like, say, other people not knowing who you are, or being able to locate you down to the nearest meter. And yet that last bit seems to have been grossly overlooked by the developers of certain dating and hookup apps, which, it turns out, leak your exact location even if you have location-based services turned off.

You’re in the mood for love, simply because there are a whole lot of eligible singles near you. That’s how it goes at speed dating events, where organizers bring in singles, sit’em down and have everyone meet everyone else for a few minutes at a time before moving on. But customers of a Boston-area dating service say the company has misled them by taking money for speed dating events when there was no event to actually attend. [More]

If you’re the kind of lady who absolutely loves it when a guy goes totally nuts and splashes out on fancy dates and all that wining and dining that goes with it, you better head to somewhere with less women around, according to a new study. Researchers say if men detect a shortage of the ladyfolk, they’re more likely to spend spontaneously in order to seem attractive. It’s all about biology!

Match.com did some very scientific research in Canada, polling singles living up there beyond our borders, and found that Android users are a lot more likely than other smartphone users to put out on the first date. Maybe don’t use that as your pick-up line, however, if you spot someone with an Android phone.

There are a number of ways to deal with the problem of being young and broke in a large, expensive city. A 24-year-old woman who has trouble paying her bills could move to a cheaper apartment. She could eat rice, lentils, and ramen instead of takeout. She could take on a second part-time job. Or she could join Match.com and find men to go on a few dates with her, paying for her meals at nice restaurants. That’s one way to save money on food.

Chemistry.com is a dating site that is separate from, but owned by, Match.com. Meredith learned this the hard way when she clicked over to Chemistry from a page on Match, then found that all of her information was already in their system. Assuming that it was all part of the same site and that Match’s advertised six-month guarantee was in effect, she signed up for a membership. After six months passed with neither chemistry nor matches, she learned that the guarantee doesn’t extend to Chemistry.com memberships.

There is a tiny chance that this “Your Single Tunic” from Wet Seal totally intends its misuse of the word “your” as some sort of ironic wink meant to mock the plight of dating in the grammar-destructive text message age. But yeah, odds are this shirt did not display the message it intended.

It’s nearly the weekend, which means at least some of you will be going out on dates, a handful of which will be first date. And in spite of all talk of gender equality, many people still think it’s the man’s job to foot the bill.

Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a New York lawyer’s claims that “ladies nights” at bars were unconstitutional because they forced men to pay more. The lawyer says he’s going to appeal to the Supreme Court, but he admitted to the New York Daily News that the odds the court will agree to hear his case are “about the same as some pretty young lady paying my way on a date.”

According to a new ING Direct study, the word that most comes to mind when a hypothetical blind date partner is described as frugal is “smart.” Sadly, “sexy” only came to mind about 3.7% of the time, but at least you’ll have more chances: an eHarmony review commissioned by Ron Lieber at the New York Times “found that both men and women were 25 percent more likely to have a potential mate reach out to them if they identified themselves as a saver rather than a spender.”

Online dating has resulted in many happy relationships out here in the real world, but also provides a unique opportunity for different kinds of scammers to quickly gain your confidence and manipulate your emotions in order to get past your normal scam-detecting defenses. So how do you protect yourself?